Sending Hugs & Kisses

This card combines The Craft's Meow's  November sketch challenge, and last week's Mid-week Throwdown at Operation Write Home (a valentine).  This card uses Gina K Designs stamps, and various bits of ribbon scraps I had around.

Forest Green Sympathy Cards

The challenge for 365 Cards Day 245 is to choose something from your home decor as inspiration for a card.  I immediately thought of a print we have in our living room, by Lee Teter, depicting a veteran at the Viet Nam Memorial in Washington D.C.  The first time I saw this print it grabbed my heart.  I wasn't sure I could handle living with it, so didn't buy it.  But the image stuck with me, and a few years later I had another opportunity to buy the print.  So, this is the inspiration for my forest green sympathy sentiment card. 

 I did one masculine version, with tan for the focal point and a leaf border punch, and one more feminine version, with a pale olive green for the focal point, swiss dot embossing, and a lacy scallop border punch (from Stampin' Up!).  The sketch is from the Just Us Girls JUGS #161 challenge.

The image came from Stampscapes "Tree Cluster" 266D K.J.N. 2001.  The sentiment is from Gina K Designs "Not Forgotten" set.
These cards also fit for the CAS-ual Friday challenge to do a masculine card, and the current Cupcake Inspirations challenge to do a forest themed card.

Cool Winter Wishes

Another winter card for Joan's Garden and Oozak, using the first November sketch from Viva le Verve. This card uses a Hero Arts image, as well as the color scheme AND dry embossing for their November contest.  
The color scheme was a little different - wet cement, soft olive, red royal, soft granite, and tide pool.  The olive, red and tide pool (teal) are pretty obvious.  The soft granite is the grey mat that has been embossed with a Cuttlebug snowflakes folder.  The olive oval is also dry embossed, using a Stampin' Up! folder. The wet cement color is the body of the house (clapboards).  The rest of the image was colored with Copic Markers, and then I added white flocking to the image where snow is indicated.  The wet cement color just didn't work for snow. LOL! 

Winter Wishes

This card almost qualifies for six challenges - the most I think I've hit with one card!  CAS-ual Friday current challenge is to make a masculine card.  The layout comes from the current I {heart| Sketches challenge (Sketch For You To Try - SFYTT).  Color scheme is from 365 Cards Day 247.  The winter card theme fits for both Joan's Garden challenge this week, and Oozak's November challenge. 
Three different Cuttlebug embossing folders were used.  Dry-embossing fits for the Hero Arts November challenge. I didn't use a Hero Arts stamp, but did use Hero Arts Soft Grey Shadow Ink.  The snowflake image stamped with that ink is by Stampin' Up!, and the words are from a Northwoods Rubber stamp.

Winter Vibes for a Card that POPS!

There are two challenges to make "winter" cards this week.  One is Joan's Garden challenge #40, and the other is the Oozak November challenge.  For 365 Cards Day 246 the challenge was to "say it with flair" - have one item on your card that really "POPS!"  Sandy Allnock recently did a card that had clear embossing on a black background, and I decided a nice bright snowflake would "pop" on black.  
This card uses three Stampin' Up! snowflake stamps for the embossed background of irridecent snowflakes on black.  The bright snowflake is also by Stampin' Up! - both the stamp and the punch that does all the fine cutting for you.
I wanted my punched snowflake to sparkle, too, so I used Versa Mark and the iridescent embossing powder to give it two coats of sparkle.  Multilayer embossing is a technique that I haven't used in awhile, so it fits for the Our Daily Bread challenge to Operation Write Home.  However, there's a limit of one card per person on that challenge, and I already submitted one.  Even with the double embossing, the snowflake didn't "pop" enough for me, so I punched a second snowflake from glossy white card stock and layered it under as a "shadow" to the flake.  That made it work for me.  Of course, to attach the snowflake to the card I used the Xyron Create-a-Sticker.